AN undercover investigation unveils the secrets used by cold-callers as they try to sell all sorts of things from alleged fine wines to company shares.

HOW does a conman pick up the
phone to a stranger and persuade them to part with their life savings?

These heartless cold callers are used to flog everything from worthless company shares to land banking deals, dodgy fine wine and carbon credits, a supposedly green investment.

Record investigators ANDREW PENMAN and NICK SOMMERLAD
go undercover to discover how these gangs recruit and train their cold callers and we’ve experienced the high-pressure results by posing as vulnerable savers.

To find out
how they select these “openers”, we sent along an undercover journalist
we will call Peter to a mass interview of about 30 candidates that was held at a hotel near Gatwick Airport.

The
all-day session was run by Ben Avis, of recruitment company Success Moves, who says he can help sales teams find “real predators”.

Success
Moves had advertised for reps to flog notorious investments called carbon credits but that changed on the day of the interview.

Peter
said: “We were told that carbon credits had a lot of bad publicity so instead they were recruiting for a client that would be selling fine wine investments.

“He added that they don’t recruit for dodgy companies, which I thought was an odd thing to have to say.

“He never asked for our CVs or asked if we knew anything about the wine market, which was incredible for someone recruiting supposed fine wine brokers.”

Instead,
the candidates had to spontaneously come up with a pitch for a useless product such as a bucket with a hole in it, a submarine with no roof, an
ejector seat for a helicopter and make-up that gives you bad skin.

“It felt like we were really being tested on how good we were at lying,” said Peter.

Successful candidates were promised huge rewards. Ben mentioned one woman who earned £600,000 in her first year.

Peter and nine others got the job on £850 a month plus commission, moving to commission-only after
six months.

The Training

Before the new alleged wine brokers could start phoning any of their potential investors, they were
given three days of training by their new employers – Worldwide Wealth Collections.

“Not once were we taught anything about wine,” said our mole Peter.

The training by the company’s Sam Hatcher focused on a sales script, which had to be learned by heart.

If the potential victim says they have no money, the scripted reply is: “Only plants and animals have no money”.

If they say they want time to think about it, the reply is: “OK, I’ll hold, shall I?”

If they say they are not comfortable with the investment, the reply is: “It’s not a sofa we’re buying”.

Peter said:
“We were also told to invent a new personality – change our name, education, age, where we live, what our fictional house looks like. Sam Hatcher said when we called a lead, ‘If they have children, you have children, if they have a dog, you have four dogs’. At no point were we given guidance on what claims we could make about potential profits.”

The Openers

Peter
and his fellow new recruits at Worldwide Wealth Collections were “openers”, putting in the initial cold call to potential targets.

“We worked from a computer list of names and phone numbers,” he said.

“People had been called eight, 10 times before but we were still told to phone them again.

“It was horrible. I was calling old people who said, ‘I keep telling your firm to stop calling me. Why won’t you listen to me?’

“There was a
Muslim on the list who would never invest in wine who had been called six or so times and even a recovering alcoholic. There was no way anyone
could get themselves removed from that database from hell.

“Most of the calls didn’t get beyond a few lines of the script but Noel Surin tried to keep morale up by offering £5000 or a Rolex to the month’s most
successful seller.”

Peter left Worldwide Wealth soon afterwards without, we must emphasise, making a single sale.

The Closers

These
are the elite of the company. After an opener has persuaded a target to
accept a brochure, a closer moves in for the kill. Posing as a potential investor with a lump sum, Penman experienced the barrage of tactics used by the company to get victims to part with their savings.

Lie:
These began with the first words spoken when Worldwide Wealth’s opener Angelica Sterling called Penman.

“I spoke to
your wife and she passed on your work number, she sounds like a lovely lady,” said Angelica, although no such conversation had taken place.

Then there was exaggeration, such as closer Matthew Knox saying: “We are seeing some explosive returns,
30 to 40 per cent annually and completely tax free.”

Penman
was also told that the wine would be stored by a bonded warehouse firm called London City Bond “that also stores the Queen’s wine”. London City
Bond is a legitimate company but it does not store the Queen's wines.

Another
lie was the use of a prestigious central London address. This is a virtual office, the real office is a shabby block in the South London suburb of Beckenham.

Penman
was being flogged two prestigious wines, a case of Mouton Rothschild 2008 and a case of Lafite Rothschild 1998 for £10,000. He was told that its quality could be guaranteed because, according to the opener Angelica: “This strict French law of ‘appellation de controlee’ means that the Rothschild family are only allowed to produce 17,500 cases of the stuff per year.”

This
was more nonsense. The firm also claimed to be huge, with closer Ralph Jones insisting he had clients “who have spent tens of millions with me”, yet the firm are so new that they have never filed accounts.

Pretend it’s urgent:
A tactic used on Penman was to give the impression that he had to act fast.

“I’ve got one opportunity, just today, after this conversation we’ll have no more further communication, we’ve got one unique position here,” said the firm’s Ralph Jones.

He insisted that a signed contract was returned that afternoon, saying: “If you can’t promise that then I can’t do business. It’s a unique opportunity.”

Emphasise safety:
Worldwide Wealth called their £10,000 investment in two cases of fine wine the New Client Safety Package.

The opener Angelica said: “The fine wine market is so safe, so secure and it’s low-maintenance. Everybody seems to be seeing it as an alternative way to safeguard their capital, it’s not correlated to the economy in the sense that your money is recession-proof.”

Matthew Knox claimed: “My game is to steer people away from the rough seas and put you on to safe land,” and, “I would be shooting myself in the foot to ever position you in an area where I was not 100 per cent confident you would make money.”

In
fact, fine wine prices can drop, with the Lafite 98 that Penman was being offered having fallen from a 12-month high of £7795 a case to nearer £6000 today.

Don’t take no for an answer:
Despite
Penman repeatedly telling Worldwide Wealth that he wasn’t interested, the company wouldn’t give up, as this extract shows.

Penman: “I’ve got to go.”

Ralph Jones: “This part will take 15 seconds. Are you 100 per cent happy with the way I’ve conducted myself today?”

Jones: “So you feel I’ve been very persistent maybe. And are you 100
per cent happy with the bargain you and I have struck today with the New Client Safety Package with conservative returns of around 15 per cent gross and getting the paperwork and settlement back to me by Wednesday the 24th.”

Penman: “I am not promising to do that.”

Jones:
“This is the opportunity of a lifetime. If I offered you Microsoft shares 20 years ago I’d be your best friend, wouldn’t I?”

Penman: “Yes, I’m sure.”

Jones:
“I’ve got one chance here for you to beat inflation, beat mediocrity, for a safe haven. If I offered you a life jacket while you were drowning, you’d grab it. Take my hand, I’m going to be beside you every step of the way, just give me the yes right now so I can get this paperwork out.”

Despite
agreeing nothing, when the paperwork arrived from Worldwide Wealth the document asked Penman to sign the contract “as agreed”.

Befriend and flatter:
The
closer, Ralph Jones, called Penman “quite a shrewd chap”, and, “I have been told you are very, very, very stylish and confident”. And Matthew Knox promised him: “When it’s your birthday, I will send you all sorts of nice bottles.”

Make alarmist attacks on safer investments:
When
Penman said he was happy with his savings being in a bank, Ralph Jones replied: “Northern Rock was shut down and these investors were standing there in the rain, is that the peace of mind that you want?”

Don’t let the target seek outside advice:
If
the potential investor is a man and says he wants to discuss the deal with his wife, the sales reps are taught to reply: “How long has your wife been a financial adviser?”

Another stock answer was: “How many times have you come home and your wife looks up from the FT and says, ‘I have found our next investment, my love.’?”

When Penman
said he wanted to talk to an independent financial adviser, Matthew Knox said that wine was “not one of their areas”.

Sins of omission:
When
Penman received a contract from Worldwide Wealth, the small print read:
“You understand that the value of vintage and/or investment wines can fall as well as rise.”

In the many phone calls from the firm, not once was this mentioned.

The
contract also stated:
“You accept that our mutual dealings are speculative” – that word “speculative” never having been used. They also never warned that fine wine is an unregulated market not covered by any financial compensation scheme.

Who's really behing Worldwide Wealth?

Noel Surin of Worldwide Wealth is confronted by our man

ON paper, the sole director of Worldwide Wealth is Nicholas Jones, a 44-year-old man who has never previously run a company.

Our mole Peter was in no doubt who the real boss was. He said: “Noel Surin had the best office with two PAs,
drove
a Bentley Continental with personal plates and made the executive decisions, such as saying we’d all be going on a foreign holiday if we hit £500,000 that month.

“Nicholas
Jones wasn’t at the interview day and had nothing to do with our training. It was Surin who was there and bought drinks for the successful candidates.”

When
we met Nicholas Jones, he was with an aggressive associate who would not give his name, said he did not work for Worldwide Wealth but demanded: “What has this got to do with a newspaper?” He added we should
be “very careful”.

Jones said: “We as a company look to take care of the public with regards to what we offer – good investment options.”

He promised answers if we emailed him but we’re still waiting, and Success Moves have not replied to us.